Megadrive/Genesis Appreciation Thread

[eastyy]

What about the opening to thunder force 4 and the various other tunes (i particulary like the omake tunes)

[Kotatsu Neko]

The rock type music in Thunderforce 4 was pretty well done, but the MD was at it's best when doing synth music. Castle of Illusion had a great soundtrack which sounded like it was coming from a much more expensive bit of kit than a humble MD.

[vertigo]

I have said previously that TF4's music is fantastic, especially level 8 and a few of the Omakes.

[imzu]

Agreed, but GnG had nice music. In fact, the first level's tune was pretty good - quite ominous, really.

Yep, by Tim Follin if I recall.

*plays air guitar to the music*

Turrican on the MD (not Mega Turrican - that was class) didn't look or sound as nice as the Amiga version, though.

Did Factor 5 handle the MD conversion? Factor 5 knew the Amiga innards pretty well and could really make it sing with their German software engineering mad skillz.

I remember one of my mates trying to play the game with a joystick - he couldn't handle the whole 'push up to jump' concept at all!

heh - I played Turrican 1 and 2 before I got my SNES and was spoiled by multi-button joypads and the superb twitch gameplay of Super Mario World.

[imzu]

Yeah totally agree with you there 100%. Too many md games used dark colours, thats why if i play those games today they feel lifeless and characterless, i like my 16 bit games to be bright and full of colour. Thats probably why i don't like the streets of rage and shinobi games, hopefully when i get a jap MD i'll stick to the more colourful games like new zealand story, gunstar heroes, and rainbow islands.

Dark compared to the SNES right? I remember reading somewhere that the SNES used seperate colour palette for the foreground and background playfields. So the sprites have a seperate 256 colour palette to the background. You can see this in many games such as Secret of Mana or Chrono Trigger where the sprites almost look like they are glowing in contrast to the background.

Edit - the MD had a 64 colour palette.

On MD RGB - It's worth trying to make your own RGB cable like I did. You can get the pin-outs from teh interweb and most of the parts from Maplin. Real nice solid picture!
I maybe wrong but I think only the first generation Megadrive had the RGB output though?

[Team Andromeda]

Did Factor 5 handle the MD conversion? Factor 5 knew the Amiga innards pretty well and could really make it sing with their German software engineering mad skillz.

Not sure , but they made Mega Turrican on the Mega Drive.
And that is a awesome piece of work. With effects that the Snes and Amiga can only dream of matching

[Team Andromeda]

There's plenty of **** music on the SNES too, let's not forget.

And to this day nothing on the SNES comes close to the Streets of Rage soundtrack. It's total quality and just shows what can be done with the MD chip.

Well said mate. Add to the list Castle Of Illusion, Revnege Of Shinobi, ToeJam&Earl 1/II as examples of fine Mega Drive tunes.

[Ostrog]

Not sure , but they made Mega Turrican on the Mega Drive.
And that is a awesome piece of work. With effects that the Snes and Amiga can only dream of matching

I don't know, Super Turrican 2 was pretty amazing. Particularly the giant sandworm boss levels and the boss battle where you fight in the monster's mouth.
Anyway, if I remember right, the old MD Turrican was handled by a crowd called Code Monkeys, I think. They did the PC Engine and GB ports as well.
They also did that Universal Soldier game too. Which would probably explain why it was so similar to Turrican in the first place.
No wait a sec...similar me arse. It was Turrican, Just not a very good Turrican.

I used to laugh at the joypad users who couldn't handle the joysticks back then. And whilst I'm well used to the pads after so many years, I still have no problems going back to the old method. Playing Amiga games wouldn't be the same without it.

[Team Andromeda]

I don't know, Super Turrican 2 was pretty amazing. Particularly the giant sandworm boss levels and the boss battle where you fight in the monster's mouth.

Oh they were jaw droping , and great Mode 7 stand out moments.
But In the MD version there was more happing and more overall spot effects , like multiple sprite rotations ect.

Its a great pice of code from Factor 5

[baad bwoy]

I used to like The New Zealand Story soundtrack, very cheerful and catchy.

[Yakumo]

Oh boy, Chip Music time !!

OK, I'm a whopper of a fan of both Mega Drive GYM and Super Famicom SPC audio. Both formats have the good and bad points. Overall the SFC/SNES is by far the strongest since it can pretty much re-create any sound where as the poor Mega Drive is stuck with FM and DAC.

Now, for RPG stuff the SFC wins hands down. No point trying to argue about it saying, well so and so on the Mega Drive sounds better because it doesn't, simple as that. But here is where the Mega Drive pulls back. In the right hands (Always Japanese programmers) the Mega Drive can produce some really complicated synth cyber rock as well as some pretty cool techno audio. We all know the wonders that Yuzo Koshiro did with the Mega Drive in games such as Bare Knuckle 1 & 2 and even Super Shinobi was amazing in it's time even if it was done at a really low sample rate. The kings and un-doubtable the masters at Mega Drive audio are TECHNOSOFT ! These clever chaps came up with their very own drivers that pushed the Mega Drive in to using ever one of it's audio channels in to overdrive. With each game they produced you can actually hear how they improved on their audio engine. Early games such as Herzog Zwei and Thunder Force II sound pretty weak when compared to their later stuff yet still pretty nice. In Devil Crash Technosoft added a few remixed audio tracks from Elemental master, Thunder Force II, Thunder Force III, Herzog Zwei and a RPG of theirs. All of these tracks sounded far superior to the original versions used on the original games (Bar Elemental Master which sounded the same) thanks to the audio engine improvements allowing more instruments and much more fluent pitch bending and mixing. A few more years down the road came Thunder Force 4 which really pushed the Mega Drive audio chip. The opening title theme is amazing as are some of the boss tunes and OMAKE track 2 and 10 are ****ing amazing stuff. The really sad thing is that Mega Drive sound emulation unlike the SFC/SNES SPC audio is incredible difficult to recreate. NO emulator does it perfectly. Gens is the best but even that is not perfect. Most games sound fine but stuff like Thunder Force 4 doesn't since Technosoft really pushed the original hardware. The only true way to enjoy Mega Drive audio is to buy the original software and hardware. You can however play Thunder Force 4 on the Saturn via Technosoft's own emulated (so I believe) version of Thunder Force 4 on the Thunder Force Gold pack 2. However even this isn't perfect to the original but more closer than any PC emulator.

Western programmers always went for the same ****ty grainy sound on the Mega Drive with Sega US being one of the worst! I could never understand why magazines at the time would say **** like Desert Strike had an awesome title theme. Sounded like crap to me yet the magazines would give it something in the 90's.

Yakumo

[vertigo]

Desert Strike has a nice quick burst of angry that puts me in the mood for the shooting. Not exactly an extended theme as such though.
You're right of course, both machines have their strong points, which is why it'd be a sad day if I had to get rid of either of them. I'd probably do a real actual cry.
I've not heard anything on the MD that can match stuff like the music from Tales of Phantasia, but the SNES can't touch the MD for the cyber-rock and techno, as you say. Shadow Dancer has some great, often overlooked, music. And I love that Ninjitsu sound effect In some ways I like it more than RoS, although as a whole RoS does edge it.

[Mu5]

Does anybody know what games are currently playable on the DGen emulator for PSP?

[Yoshimax]

You can get Gens for PSP ? Does it do mega-cd iso's ?

[wheelaa]

Does anybody know what games are currently playable on the DGen emulator for PSP?

I can tell you all games are playable on the original media. Nuff said.